


Words To The Wise

by Oricalle



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, H'aanit Voice: 'tis probably noteth funnyen., Humor, Joke Fic, Mild Language, Overwrought Middle English Approaches, but it's all in a humorous context
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 01:17:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20055685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oricalle/pseuds/Oricalle
Summary: During a pitched battle, Tressa finally snaps at H'aanit's unique way of speaking.(This story is dedicated to Everyone Who's Tried To Write With H'aanit's Dialogue)





	Words To The Wise

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I was working a little with H'aanit's dialogue today, and I kinda wanted to scream! Instead I wrote a joke fic about it. 
> 
> If you've ever sat there and agonized over whether she would use "founden" or "foundeth", this is dedicated to you.

A terrifying roar shook the cavern walls, sending a tiny avalanche of pebbles cascading around Tressa’s prone form. She rose, bruised but not beaten, and raised her lance towards the source of the sound.

Once again, she and her seven companions had found themselves locked in a battle against a fearsome monster. Olberic, Alfyn, and Primrose formed a barely stable front line, struggling to keep their foe from advancing upon their allies who were more suited to ranged combat. Cyrus and Ophilia were deep in concentration, channeling powerful mystic attacks at the beast, and she could see H’aanit’s arrows firing in a barrage from behind her. That only left…

“Therion!”

Tressa gasped as the thief’s battered body fell from the cavern’s ceiling, landing with a painful crunch on the stone floor. The monster’s roar must have knocked him loose from an attempted aerial attack. As she watched the blood trickle from a wound on his chest, Tressa frantically dug through her pack, grasping madly in search of a curative.

“H’aanit! Where are the Healing Grapes?”

The huntress didn’t take her eyes off of her quarry.

“Betwixt thine second and third compartenments!”

Tressa’s face fell.

“H’aanit, what does that MEAN?”

Still not looking away, H’aanit shouted again.

“There shoulden be’st a narrowen pouch betwixt yon largeth and smalleth pocketseth ‘pon thine backethpacketh! Thy grapes art locateden within!”

“Hey, Tress!” Alfyn glanced over his shoulder, face still glistening with sweat from the continuing battle. “I think I know what she’s talkin’ about, it’s the-”

A massive claw shot out from the darkness, colliding with Alfyn’s head and knocking the apothecary out cold before he could provide the necessary exposition.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”

Pounding one fist on the floor, she raised the backpack in the air with her other hand. “Okay, H’aanit! Over here!”

Perhaps shaken from her combat reverie after watching one of her allies get socked upside the head by an improbably sized claw, H’aanit finally met Tressa’s eyes with her own. “Whateth?”

Tressa pointed to the backpack. “What’s this?”

“Thineth backenpackagon!”

“Didn’t she just call it something else?” Ophilia asked, looking quizzically at the scene unfolding behind her. “H’aanit, are you okay?”

“I am mosteth finesteth! But ouren deadethlygon battlen continueth, Ophilian!” 

“Wait, hold on, I’m sorry.” Primrose pocketed her knife and walked over, leaving Olberic to be quickly overrun by the monster, but like on accident, whoops. She approached H’aanit and gave her a stare. “Did you just call her Ophilian?”

“Ofeth coursen.” H’aanit lowered her bow in response, frowning at Primrose. “Foren whaten reasonon wouldst I calleth Ophilian byeth anothern namen, Primethroseanon?”

“Oh my Flame…” muttered Ophilia. She rested a hand on Cyrus’ shoulder, rousing him from his trance of casting Blizzard over and over and over again. “Professor? We need your help.”

“But of course, dear Ophilia? What is your question?”

Primrose flourished her arms in H’aanit’s direction. “Cyrus, what the heck is wrong with H’aanit right now?”

Cyrus narrowed his eyes, approaching the huntress, who was looking rather annoyed by all of these questions. Thankfully, the monster, who was some kind of huge bear-dragon-lion thing, decided that now would be an appropriate time to start munching on some nearby rocks.

“I’n truleth confoundetheden, mineth mosteth trustagonethed companeniononagons.” H’aanit blinked in confusion. “Foreth whaten reasononen wouldsteth thouen thinketh’st somethenon iseth, perchance, wrongenon with’st me’st?”

“WHY IS SHE TALKING LIKE THAT?” Tressa was near-hysterical now, far too young to be going bald but feeling like she might get there if this conversation lasted much longer.

Cyrus ran a hand through his hair, clearly either deep in thought or distracted by a really cool bird he saw on the way to the tavern that one time.

“It is my academic conclusion,” he muttered, “that H’aanit is suffering from a bizarre strain of vocal chord degradation, likely initiated by the habitation of forbidden arcane magicks in her larynx, that could, in bizarre circumstances, result in elongation of speech and the addition of muliplicative extraneous syllabic intonations.”

Primrose moaned, walking up to the monster. “Okay, just knock me out.”

The monster obliged, and Ophilia swore.

“Curses! She thought of that before I could!”

Not wanting to leave her out, the monster tossed a rock in the cleric’s direction.

“Thank you,” she shouted back, briefly before being carried into unconsciousness by a flying rock.

The bear-dragon-lion thing finished its crunchy rock snack and turned back to the three remaining conscious protagonists, sneering in a very draconic yet ursine sort of way. Cyrus rushed back to Tressa’s side, a sudden smile lighting up the scholar’s face.

“Eureka, I’ve got it! Tressa, lend me your wind magic! We’ll create a firestorm to immolate this wicked beast!”

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day! Let’s do it!”

Leaping to the professor’s side, trying not to step on Therion’s back, Tressa began an incantation, letting a powerful gale of wind tear through the cavern. It ruined Therion’s haircut, but it did seem to be pushing the monster back. It snarled and snapped its jaws, lowering its head and beginning to charge the pair of casters. Cyrus quickly began his assault as well, a torrent of flames leaping from his palm and engulfing his foe in crimson light. The creature howled and struggled underneath the twofold assault.

“Thouen arteth doingen a fineth jobenaganeth!” H’aanit called. “Continuen to’th’st dis’tributeneth thineth’st flam’eth’s u’p’o’n’e’t’h’ yonderthine betwixt-hiden ‘pon yonderthou beastethenagon, in’st fairest Veroneth’st dothen we’st’th layeth ou’r scenenanen, two’th housenethes bothen alikethenanon in’s’t diginitanoneny-”

Cyrus turned to Tressa.

“Alright, even I have no idea what she’s saying now.”

The momentary lapse in focus was enough, and the beast now barreled over the two companions, knocking them both out and sending Therion into double-unconsciousness. H’aanit sighed, drawing back her bowstring and firing an arrow directly into the monster’s bearlike-dragonlike-lionlike neck. 

It died immediately.

“Finalleth.” muttered H’aanit. She sighed and began the trek to gather her allies’ bodies in her extremely ripped arms, to carry them back to town for some healing and a decent meal at the inn. She sighed again, for emphasis.

Hadn’t any of these people ever heard of a Healing Grape?

**Author's Note:**

> At a surprising pace, Linde dashed into the cavern.
> 
> "Linde," asked H'aanit, the slumped forms of seven people piled like Jenga bricks on her back, "wheren where thou?"
> 
> "The author forgot to include me." Linde replied.


End file.
